My Friends by Hisham Matar

Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026--San Antonio

My Friends by Hisham Matar is probably the best book I have read in the last 6 months.  I found it to be fascinating and exciting.  It was a finalist for the National Book Award and longlisted for the Booker Prize.  So far, of all the books I have read from those two lists (which is about 2/3 of them), this has been the best in my opinion.  (The only one that might have been as good is Flashlight by Susan Choi.)  It's the story of friendships that develop among 3 young men who leave Libya and end up living most of their lives as expatriates because of events that make it dangerous for them to return home where Col. Gaddafi rules as an iron-fisted dictator.  Its a story of missing family and the homeland while adapting to life in their new home (mostly the UK) to the point that they realize they are not really completely at home in either place.  It's a story of historical fiction--built around events that actually happened, but with fictional characters involved.  There was a point where my interest started to wane for a few pages, but then the excitement picked back up.  All of the characters are well developed and fascinating in different ways.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Flesh by David Szalay

Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026--San Antonio

Flesh by David Szalay won the Booker Prize this year.  It's an interesting story, but I don't understand all the hype about it.  It follows the life of Itzvan, a Hungarian, who doesn't seem to get too excited about anything except when he is riled up and when that happens he tends to over react by fighting.  Otherwise, he just goes with the flow.  When the next door neighbor asks if she can kiss him, the first step in a grooming process when he is a teenager, his response is, "Okay."  He says "Okay" at lot throughout the book.  But his involvement with older women becomes a continuing part of his life story which is a pour to riches to just barely not poor one over time.  He's not much of a decider.  He tends to be a follower.  And he tends to accept what is happening step-by-step without much concern or excitement.  I have now read all 5 of the shortlisted books for the Booker Prize and 3 more that were longlisted.  It's been a disappointing year for me.  Only one of them did I rate higher than 4 stars out of 5--Flashlight by Susan Choi.  I also rate this winner of the prize 4 stars out of 5.

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026--San Antonio

I quit reading The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami when I was 17% of the way through it. It wasn't because it isn't a well-written novel.  It was because it was making me miserable and upset reading it.  The story is about an ordinary citizen becoming entrapped in a government surveillance program most likely because the interviewer at customs when returning home was offended by her questioning if it was due to her last name but also because the program is secretive with no definite guidelines and no requirement to reveal the reasons.  The citizen is sent to a retention center for 21 days, but no one seems to get out after that length of time since restrictions so tight that it is easy to keep extending the time for not following rules.  This story is too close to what is happening today in our country to immigrants and even to U.S. citizens being caught up in that program.  The further I read in the book, the more upset I became.  No rating for the book.  I do not recommend it for reading by anyone who has an ounce of empathy for others being caught up in such a system.

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026--San Antonio

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and named as a top book of 2025 in many places.  It is a well written book.  It's a little slow at the beginning.  (I only read about 5% of the novel the first day, and I had to go back and re-read it again the next day to remember what was there and to apply that knowledge to what I was reading beyond there.)  But there comes a big turn of events just after all the characters introduced in the book have attended a boxing day party (Dec. 26, 1962).  Within a few days a snow storm has started and is not letting up.  It became known as the Big Freeze of 1963.  The first half of the book had set up the characters in a way that you know that many of them have made decisions in life that are questionable and others have suffered because of events in their lives that they had no control over themselves.  Most of the characters are not that appealing.   In the second half of the book, there is a snowball effect in which the consequences of the poor decisions and the actions of the characters spiral downward and the reader wonders what is going to go wrong and how bad will it get.  Well, there is no happy ending (and the author adds one sentence about 3/4 of the way through that lets you know in advance that this will be the result).  But it is an exciting ride which, combined with the very good writing, caused me to rate the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben

Monday, Jan. 11, 2026--San Antonio

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits is about family relationships, personal desires, a road trip to figure things out, and coming to terms with how it has all turned out.  It's a short novel (240 pages) that was a finalist for the Booker Prize last year.  Tom is a middle-aged law professor living in Westchester County, New York, who has always talked about writing a book based on interactions with strangers in pick-up basketball games at local parks around the country.  He has had students file a complaint about his teaching and is on a semester-long enforced sabattical leave.  His father left his family before he was a teenager and his relationship with both his younger brother and his son are somewhat estranged.  His wife had an affair with another man 12 years ago, but he decided to stay with her until both their kids had left home.  His trip starts when he drives their daughter to Pittsburgh where she will begin her freshman year of college and then decides that rather than returning home he would like to see his brother in the Midwest, his best friend from his college days in Denver, and his son and the grave of his father in Los Angeles.  It's an easy read which kept my attention so well that I finished it within 2 days.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Playworld by Adam Ross

Thrusday, Jan. 8, 2026--San Antonio

Playworld by Adam Ross was named a best book of 2025 by The New Yorker and a notable book by the New York Times and Washington Post.  I agree with the judgement of the latter two.  The book is a bit too long with too much detail and only rare instances that are particularly interesting.  But this coming-of-age novel does have some rare instances of "meat" to keep the reader involved and and to make the story unique.  Griffin, the central character, is a 14-year-old boy whose family lives in Manhattan.  The father has made a passable living mainly doing jingles and commercials.  The boy, however, has been starring as the central character in a super hero TV series for children for several years.  He has done this at his father's insistence to help "pay his way" in life.  Supposedly the cost of his private school is paid from his money.  There is a question of whether the rest of his money is all being saved for paying for college for him or whether it may also be helping support the family's lifestyle.  The story covers a critical period when the boy, even after having been cast in a feature film by a universally respected writer/director, is questioning whether he wants to continue being an actor, has as his main interest in life a desire to participate in his school's wrestling program, and is feeling like a misfit when it comes to establishing a relationship with a female.  He wants a girl his age to become his girlfriend, but she is more interested in a senior who treats her poorly.  In the meantime, he finds himself developing an inappropriate relationship with a married woman who is a friend of the family.  His family life also becomes unsteady.  His father has left town to play a major role in touring tryouts for a new musical that might be his big break in life.  His mother has eventually left the apartment because of becoming aware that the father is having an affair with one of the leading ladies in the musical.  And his brother who has always been his roommate and who he loves, has also moved out of the apartment and is becoming distant because of both what's happening with their parents and his frustration with Griffin whose memory has blocked what really happened when their apartment burned many years ago.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.  

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar

Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025--San Antonio

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar is not an easy book to read.  I could only tolerate reading a few pages a day.  Why?  Because like so many books set in India, there are new hardships ready to befall on every character around every corner.  It is a very depressing book--one set a few decades into the future in Kolkata.  Global warming has become so severe that seas have heated to much to maintain fish and are rising and flooding the land, crops cannot be grown because temperatures are so high and because the soil is deteriorating from salt water flooding and regular water is so scarce that there is barely enough to drink, people are eating artificial manufactured food with no taste and even it is scarce, scammers and thieves are everywhere, and people who can get a climate refugee visa to join relatives living elsewhere are leaving (but citizens elsewhere are starting to rebel against the issuing of these visas.  With the turn of every page, life for the central characters keeps getting worse and worse.  The book was a finalist for the National Book Award this year.  It is well written and quite realistic in terms of what life is like in general in India (as I have observed it for months at a time over 6 visits).  But a "good" book can be a miserable one to read, and that is what this one was for me.  My inner turmoil caused by reading it causes me to feel that it merits a rating of 2 stars out of 5.  Because it is well written, I will raise my overall rating to a generous 4 stars out of 5.